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Many plants combat herbivore and pathogen attack indirectly by attracting predators of their herbivores. Here we describe a novel type of insect–plant interaction where a carnivorous plant uses such an indirect defence to prevent nutrient loss to kleptoparasites. The ant  Camponotus schmitzi  is an obligate inhabitant of the carnivorous pitcher plant  Nepenthes bicalcarata  in Borneo. It has recently been suggested that this ant–plant interaction is a nutritional mutualism, but the detailed mechanisms and the origin of the ant-derived nutrient supply have remained unexplained. We confirm that  N. bicalcarata  host plant leaves naturally have an elevated  15 N/ 14 N stable isotope abundance ratio (δ 15 N) when colonised by  C. schmitzi . This indicates that a higher proportion of the plants’ nitrogen is insect-derived when  C. schmitzi  ants are present (ca. 100%, vs. 77% in uncolonised plants) and that more nitrogen is available to them. We demonstrated direct flux of nutrients from the ants to the host plant in a  15 N pulse-chase experiment. As  C. schmitzi  ants only feed on nectar and pitcher contents of their host, the elevated foliar δ 15 N cannot be explained by classic ant-feeding (myrmecotrophy) but must originate from a higher efficiency of the pitcher traps. We discovered that  C. schmitzi  ants not only increase the pitchers' capture efficiency by keeping the pitchers’ trapping surfaces clean, but they also reduce nutrient loss from the pitchers by predating dipteran pitcher inhabitants (infauna). Consequently, nutrients the pitchers would have otherwise lost  via  emerging flies become available as ant colony waste. The plants’ prey is therefore conserved by the ants. The interaction between  C. schmitzi ,  N. bicalcarata  and dipteran pitcher infauna represents a new type of mutualism where animals mitigate the damage by nutrient thieves to a plant.

A Novel Type of Nutritional Ant–Plant Interaction: Ant Partners of Carnivorous Pitcher Plants Prevent Nutrient Export by Dipteran Pitcher Infauna